Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator

Septerra Core is a high-quality gem that unfortunately failed commercially at its release. Despite the fact that the combat and area navigation can get repetitive and boring, the game is supported by good storyline, memorable characters, and unique setting. The art and graphics were of good quality for the time of its release, and many people will have noticed that it plays out very much like Chrono Trigger, just with a mouse. Unlike Chrono Trigger, however, the movement and interface is rather clunky. The voice acting is above average, and it's the voice acting combined with its F.M.V. cut-scenes that help draw you into the game. The game-play itself is where Septerra falters. Combat measures its turns by an action bar with three segments. Weak attacks, items and magic spells require only a single segment, while the strongest attacks require all three. This sounds good on paper, but enemies more often than not take a turn every single time they get a segment (which you can't see). This means that early in the game, you're taking 2-3 hits before you dish out your one strong attack, while later in the game the entire system is subverted later in the game because the combination magic spells only require the first line segment, rendering all level 2 and 3 skills obsolete. Compounding this is the lack of a convenient teleport system to prevent backtracking, and the game's insistance that you traverse areas you've previously explored in order to complete quests - which means more fights. Compared to Chrono Trigger, where areas could be avoided or simply flown over most of the time, this is a step back from 1995 standards. Regardless of that, The game is enjoyable overall, with some straightforward puzzles, some interesting boss fights, and relatively distinct societies that make your world-shell hopping very memorable. A quick Google for cheat codes will also empower you with the ability to essentially skip all combat, rendering the flaws of this game completely moot. To those who enjoy the 16-bit era of gaming, I highly recommend this game. It's worthy of a place in your heart and on your shelf.

I loved this game, yeah the VA isn't the greatest but the story was fantastic and game play was really good, this game took elements of point and click adventure games like King's Quest and Rpg elements.

There's a lot to like here. The plot's pretty good, full of changing allegiences and ambiguity of choice. It's very good-looking for being stuck at 640x480: the world of Septerra's gorgeous and the characters distinctive. The battle system's great: the three-step time bar adds a lot (do I use everybody's weak attack to take down one enemy quickly, or wait for everybody to be full to maximize total damage across all enemies?) BUT...this game is absolutely ruined by boredom. Every attack has a "jump to enemy, attack, jump back" animation, which sadly isn't nearly fluid enough to match the art. Even worse, everything pauses for a few seconds before and after the animationg. On a modern machine, this can't be loading delay. Out of battle, the player spends a lot of time wandering through huge mazes "all alike", getting constantly drawn into battle (enemies are sometimes visible, but they're hard to avoid, and some just appear). The game seems to punish exploration. Worse, the plot is linear but lacking cues; a walkthrough's necessary to avoid a lot of time running around looking for the plot. In the end the tedium tears apart what would be an otherwise fine game; of 75 hours playtime, I probably spent 35 or so playing, and the rest waiting for the game or searching for the plot.

I remember liking the beginning and end of this game. I also liked how the combat played out in the game world. But for whatever reason I also remember being disappointed with the game as a whole. Lots of boring fights with areas where boring, unavoidable enemies respawn? Lots of find the key/pull the lever quests? I think it had both of those.

Not usually a fan of jrpgs, but this one, with it's western cyberpunk theme, was pretty decent and also considering it came out in 1999.